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I 


I 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED    BEFORE    THE 


Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 


AND  INVITED  GUESTS 


On    February  i2,  1901 


Hon.  George  Frisbie  Hoar 


IN    RESPONSE   TO   AN    INVITATION   OF   THE 


General  Court 


BOSTON 
1901 


Boston  : 
Wrkiht  &  Potter  Puinting  Co.,  18  Post  Offick  Sqiiake. 


ADDRESS. 


Mr.  Pkksident,  Mr.   Speaker  and  Gentlemen  :  — 

Your  invitation  comes  to  me  alike  as  a  high  honor  and 
a  command  not  to  be  disobeyed.  I  seem,  as  I  speak  to 
this  assembly,  to  be  speaking  to  the  Commonwealth  her- 
self, here  in  her  stately  palace,  in  gracious  bodily  pres- 
ence. To  a  son  of  Massachusetts  there  can  be  no  earthly 
honor  greater  than  that  she  can  confer,  and  no  mandate 
save  that  of  the  country  alone  which  can  speak  with  so 
great  authority.  It  may  seem,  at  the  first  thought,  to 
have  something  of  disrespect  in  it,  what,  after  all,  is  the 
highest  token  of  respect,  that  I  have  not  for  a  moment 
stopped  to  consider  whether  what  I  have  to  say  shall 
please  or  displease.  The  faithful  servant  does  his  master 
most  honor  when  he  gives  fearless  even  if  unwelcome 
counsel.  The  gracious  master  honors  that  servant  above 
ail  others  to  whose  good  will  and  affection  he  permits 
the  freest  and  the  plainest  speech. 

This  day  has  a  double  significance.  It  is  the  birthday 
of  our  great  martyr-President.  It  is  near  the  beginning 
of  your  first  session  in  the  new  century.  This  house,  I 
suppose,  is  the  oldest  legislative  body  on  earth  represent- 
ing a  free  people,  save  only  the  House  of  Commons  and 
perhaps  the  Virginia  House  of  Burgesses.  Whether  we 
are  to  dwell  wholly  on  the  life  and  teachings  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  to  see  how  near  we  have  followed  or  how 
far  we  have  drifted  away  from  the  path  he  marked  out 


for  us,  or  whether  we  are  to  take  the  census  of  what 
has  been  gained  for  humanity  in  one  of  the  periods  by 
which  history  is  reckoned,  our  thoughts  are  not  unlikely 
to  turn  into  the  same  channels.  Freedom,  self-govern- 
ment, justice,  the  welfare  of  humanity,  were  the  great 
things  for  which  Lincoln  lived  and  for  which  Lincoln  died. 
Freedom,  self-government,  justice,  the  welfare  of  human- 
ity are  still  the  tests  by  which  we  mark  the  progress  of 
the  nation  and  the  race. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  we  might  improve 
somewhat  our  method  of  celebrating  the  birthdays  of 
our  heroes  and  statesmen  who  have  departed.  Instead 
of  inviting  some  living  orator,  let  us,  as  near  as  may  be, 
invite  the  man  himself  to  the  celebration.  If  the  people 
are  considering  some  question  involving  the  public  wel- 
fare or  the  fate  of  the  republic,  or  what,  if  not  the  same 
thing,  are  higher  and  dearer  yet,  the  honor  and  the  con- 
science of  the  republic,  let  some  faithful  searcher  gather 
everything  the  man  we  would  honor  has  left  us  on  that 
subject  in  the  way  of  example  or  of  precept.  If  the 
question  be  whether  we  shall  enter  on  a  career  of  foreign 
dominion,  let  us  celebrate  Washington's  birthday  by  re- 
calling what  he  said  on  that  subject.  If  the  question  be 
what  constitutes  lawful  reason  for  war;  or  what  is  the 
duty  of  good  citizenship  when  the  country  is  in  a  war  in 
which  it  is  wrong ;  or  what  are  the  rights  which  belong 
everywhere  to  that  being  which  we  call  a  people ;  or 
what  is  the  line  of  distinction  between  power  and  right, 
when  a  strong  nation  has  to  deal  with  a  weak  one ;  or 
whether  it  be  lawful  for  one  people  to  subdue  another 
to  its  will;    what  consent  of  the  governed,  if  any,  be 


necessary  to  the  exercise  of  just  powers  of  government ; 
whether  there  can  be  taxation  rightfully  without  repre- 
sentation; whether  men  may  be  held  lawfully  in  a 
State  as  subjects  and  not  citizens,  —  would  it  not  be 
well,  on  Abraham  Lincoln's  birthday,  to  gather  every- 
thing he  said  on  those  subjects,  and  what  he  did  when 
charged  with  public  responsibilities?  Would  it  not  be 
well,  on  Webster's  birthday,  to  call  him  up  to  bear  his 
testimony  as  in  visible  presence ;  or,  on  Jetferson's  birth- 
day, to  hear  what  he  had  to  say  about  it ;  or,  on  Sumner's 
birthday,  to  listen  again  to  the  counsel  of  that  dauntless 
and  righteous  spirit?  In  that  way  the  silent  lips  of  the 
mighty  dead  will  seem  ever  speaking  their  high  com- 
mands to  their  countrymen.  In  that  Avay  every  gen- 
eration will  still  live,  and  Webster  and  Sumner  and  Sam 
Adams  and  John  Adams  may  still  always  be  present  on 
this  spot  with  which  they  were  so  familiar  in  life,  still 
sitting,  still  deliberating,  still  debating. 

But  I  have  preferred,  if  I  may  so  far  presume  on  your 
generous  indulgence,  to  devote  this  hour  to  a  few  thoughts 
appropriate  to  the  beginning  of  the  new  century. 

I  will  not,  in  the  time  I  have  a  right  to  occupy  to-day, 
undertake  to  deal  with  matters  which  are  sure  to  be 
thoroughly  discussed  elsewhere.  I  have  not  time,  and 
it  would  not  Be  worth  while,  if  I  had,  to  compare  the 
condition  of  the  country  or  of  the  Commonwealth  in 
power,  in  population,  in  wealth,  in  invention  and  in 
material  resources,  or  in  general  intelligence,  with  that 
of  1701  or  1801.  You  will  find  all  that  in  the  census 
and  the  statistical  tables  of  boards  of  trade  and  cham- 
bers of  commerce.     If  you  wish,  in  these  days,  to  stir 


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the  blood  and  to  start  the  tear  of  pride  in  an  American 
citizen,  the  best  thing  with  which  to  do  it  is  a  column 
of  figures  from  the  census.  I  wish  to  speak  only  of 
some  of  the  things  which  affect  the  moral  condition 
and  character  of  the  people.  I  like  better  to  consider 
what  we  have  gained  in  the  two  centuries,  and  es- 
pecially in  the  one  century  which  has  just  gone  by,  in 
the  things  which  make  the  true  welfare  and  determine 
the  destiny  of  the  Commonwealth.  It  must  be  but  a 
glance.  I  can  speak  only  of  a  few  things  out  of 
many.  Civil  and  religious  freedom;  the  comfort  and 
dignity  of  the  common  life  of  the  people ;  fair  distribution 
of  wealth ;  opportunity  to  get  the  necessaries  and  com- 
forts of  life  and  to  achieve  success  in  honorable  employ- 
ment ;  purity  of  legislation ;  the  power  of  conscience  and 
justice  over  the  action  of  the  people ;  security  of  life  and 
property  against  crime ;  the  prevalence  of  public  spirit 
over  party  spirit ;  the  dignity  of  manhood  and  woman- 
hood, not  only  as  respected  in  ourselves,  but  as  respected 
and  guarded  in  our  treatment  of  other  races  than  our 
own,  —  these  are  the  chief  things,  or  certainly  among 
the  chief  things,  which  are  to  decide  whether  Massachu- 
setts shall  abide  and  keep  her  honorable  place  in  the 
estimation  of  mankind.  I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  only 
about  each  of  these  things,  hastily,  and  without  much 
attempt  at  order. 

The  keynote  of  the  constitutional  history  of  Massachu- 
setts, from  the  landing  of  the  Puritans  to  this  hour,  has 
been  a  people's  government  by  its  sober  second  thought. 
Her  people  have  always  insisted  that  the  thoughts  of  a 
great  nation  ought  to  come  slowly  and  its  action  ought  to 


be  deliberate.  So,  while  spasms  of  popular  feeling  have 
swept  over  the  State,  it  is  gratifying  to  record  that  they 
have  borne  little  fruit  of  mischief.  It  is  noticeable  that 
almost  every  one  of  these  cases  has  been  an  instance 
where  the  people  have,  for  the  time  being,  broken  away 
from  party  ties,  and  that  they  have  been  brought  back 
to  sobriety  and  wisdom  by  party  instrumentality.  To 
every  people  into  whose  government  anything  of  free- 
dom enters,  government  by  party  is  a  necessity.  In 
proportion  as  governments  are  free,  tlie  necessity  of 
party  government  becomes  greater.  In  proportion  as 
party  government  has  prevailed  in  any  nation  or  in  any 
generation,  in  that  proportion  the  nation  or  generation 
has  achieved  most  for  righteousness,  justice  and  liberty, 
has  made  most  rapid  progress  and  has  been  most  pros- 
perously and  wisely  administered.  Responsible  party 
government  is  a  highly  conservative  force  in  a  republic. 
It  demands  leadership.  But  it  demands  also  consulta- 
tion, deliberation  and  following  leadership.  So  the  dim- 
inution of  the  strength  of  party  obligation  is  by  no  means 
an  unmixed  good. 

But  the  sense  of  party  obligation  which  puts  party 
spirit  above  public  spirit  and  gives  bitterness  not  only 
to  the  discussion  of  public  affairs  but  to  private  and 
social  intercourse,  which  assails  personal  motive  and 
would  destroy  personal  character,  is  doubtless  one  of 
the  greatest  of  public  evils.  I  rejoice  to  believe  that 
within  the  last  century  it  has  largely  diminished  and 
seems  almost  wholly  disappearing  from  Massachusetts. 
This  has  perhaps  brought  with  it  some  loss  of  stead- 
fastness and  constancy.     But,   on    the    whole,   it   is    a 


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great  gain.  No  man  who  can  read  the  literature  or 
history  of  the  time  before  the  revolution,  of  the  time 
just  after  the  revolution,  or  knows  the  past  or  present 
condition  of  other  free  countries,  will  doubt,  I  think, 
that  the  spirit  of  what  is  called  partisanship,  in  the  bad 
meaning  of  the  word,  is  less  in  this  Commonwealth  than 
in  any  other  spot  on  the  earth's  surface,  and  is  less 
in  this  Commonwealth  to-day  than  it  was  ever  before. 
If  you  would  search  for  political  bitterness,  for  hatred, 
malice  and  uncharitableness,  for  attributing  to  men 
base  motives  wherever  base  motives  are  possible  or 
even  conceivable,  you  may  perhaps  find  them  stiJl. 
But  you  will  not  find  them  in  the  organs  of  either  of 
the  great  parties  of  Massachusetts,  or  in  the  represent- 
atives of  those  great  parties  who  sit  in  these  seats  side 
by  side,  striving  with  a  generous  emulation  to  do  what 
is  for  the  good  of  the  Commonwealth  they  love. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century,  if  there 
did  not  exist  what  may  be  called  party  spirit,  it  was  be- 
cause the  rigid  intolerance  of  the  time  did  not  admit  of 
party  itself.  There  had  been  a  few  great  controversies 
in  the  seventy  years  since  the  settlement ;  but  they  had 
been  solely,  I  suppose,  of  a  religious  character.  Party, 
in  its  new  and  modern  sense,  came  into  being  with  the 
great  controversy  with  the  crown,  which  ended  in  revo- 
lution and  independence. 

In  1801  Mr.  Jefferson  was  elected  to  the  presidency 
after  a  long  and  bitter  contest  in  the  House.  The  Fed- 
eralists favored  Aaron  Burr.  It  seemed  not  so  much  a 
party  victory  as  a  new  revolution.  Levi  Lincoln  the 
younger,  in  an  oration  warmly  praised  by  Jefferson  him- 


9 


self,  proposed  that  thereafter  the  4th  of  March  should 
take  the  place  of  the  4th  of  July  to  be  celebrated  as  the 
birthday  of  American  freedom.  The  Republicans  and 
Democrats  who  sit  side  by  side  in  these  seats  in  an  affec- 
tionate brotherhood  can  hardly  believe  the  bitterness  of 
the  party  spirit  of  the  time.  It  pervaded  the  pulpit,  the 
press  and  the  college.  It  divided  the  social  life  of  village 
communities  into  hostile  camps.  The  elder  Levi  Lincoln, 
who  had  organized  and  led  the  great  political  revolution 
in  New  England,  then  Mr.  Jefferson's  Attorney-General, 
tells  him  in  the  spring  of  1801  that  things  are  getting  a 
little  better,  and  that  even  the  ministers  pray  with  more 
discretion.  The  clergymen  were  Federalists,  almost  all 
of  them.  The  Democrat  seemed  in  their  eyes  a  sinner 
almost  past  praying  for,  except  that  sometimes  the  invo- 
cation would  go  up  from  the  desk,  "  Oh,  Lord,  wilt  Thou 
send  down  Thy  blessing  upon  the  President  of  these 
United  States,  and  wilt  Thou  give  him  that  wisdom  which 
he  so  much  needs." 

The  college  shared  and  reflected  the  same  feeling.  At 
Dartmouth,  in  1803,  the  poet  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
Society  denounced  the  new  administration  with  the  fe- 
rocity and  with  some  little  trace  of  the  vigor  of  Juvenal. 
He  represents  the  awful  shade  of  Washington,  then  dead 
but  four  years,  rising  from  his  tomb  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac,  and  casting  angrily  in  the  faces  of  his  unworthy 
and  degraded  countrymen  the  honors  with  which  they 
had  once  crowned  him  :  — 

His  warm  cheek  glowed,  and  flashed  his  angry  eye ; 
Then  from  his  brow  the  laurel  wreath  unbound, 
And  threw  the  withering  honors  on  the  ground. 


10 


Here  is  the  portraiture  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  then 
President :  — 

Cimmerian  goblins  brooded  o'er  the  hour 
When  here  a  wild  projector  rose  to  power; 
Delusive  schemes  distend  whose  plodding  brain, 
Whose  philosophic  robe  debaucheries  stain. 
He,  weak  in  rule,  unskilled  in  moral  lore, 
In  practice  infidel,  in  spirit  poor ; 
Despised  in  person  and  debased  in  mind. 
At  once  the  curse  and  pity  of  mankind ; 
Pleased  with  his  simple  garb  and  atheist  lore, 
Reviles  the  God  his  countrymen  adore. 
Refined  in  insult,  there  we  see  him  shed 
Theatric  sorrow  o'er  the  mighty  dead. 
Oh,  then,  then  Heaven's  indignant  thunders  slept; 
The  shade  was  wounded  and  the  virtues  wept. 

Here  is  the  poet's  picture  of  Albert  Gallatin,  that  most 
accomplished  scholar  and  patriot,  then  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury :  — 

Columbians,  see  disgraced  and  drooping  stand 
Your  eagle,  half  unfledged,  by  party's  hand. 
Columbians,  see  a  foreign  child  of  vice. 
Vile  leech  of  state,  whose  virtue's  avarice, 
Sedition-nursed  and  taught  in  faction's  school. 
With  front  of  triple  brass  your  treasury  rule. 
Columbians,  see  the  foes  of  virtue  rise, 
By  slander  mounted  and  upheld  by  lies. 
Columbians,  see  your  veterans  basely  spurned, 
Your  heroes  slighted  and  your  chiefs  unmourned. 
See,  nor,  while  merit  from  your  pride  is  driven, 
Expect  the  favor  of  offended  Heaven. 

This  poem  was  published  by  a  committee  of  which 
Ezekiel  Webster,  the  brother  of  Daniel,  himself  afterward 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  men  in  New  Hampshire,  was 


11 


chairman.  Through  the  committee,  tiie  Society  of  the 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  returned  to  the  author  their  cordial 
thanks  for  his  ' '  ingenious  and  sentimental  poem,  and  re- 
quest a  copy  for  publication." 

This  was  Dartmouth.  I  am  afraid  Harvard  was  worse. 
Fisher  Ames,  our  great  orator,  who  ought  still  to  be 
studied  by  our  youth  as  a  model,  who  was  offered  the 
presidency  of  Harvard  just  about  the  time  the  letter  was 
written,  says :  ' '  Our  country  is  too  big  for  union,  too 
sordid  for  patriotism,  too  democratic  for  liberty.  What 
is  to  become  of  it,  he  who  made  it  best  knows.  Its  vice 
will  govern  it  by  practising  upon  its  folly.  This  is  or- 
dained for  democracies.  .  .  .  Botany  Bay  will  be  a 
bettering-house  for  our  public  men.  Our  morals,  for- 
ever sunning,  and  fly-blown  like  fresh  meat  hung  up  in 
the  election  market,  will  taint  the  air  like  pestilence. 
Liberty  will  choke  in  such  an  atmosphere,  fouler  than 
the  vapor  of  death  in  a  mine." 

There  were  towns  —  I  think  it  was  a  little  worse  in  New 
Hampshire  than  in  Massachusetts  —  where  the  whole 
Democratic  party  would  combine  to  prevent  a  Federalist 
moving  into  town,  and  the  whole  Federal  party  would 
combine  to  keep  out  a  Democrat,  or  to  get  him  out  if  he 
came  in.  In  choosing  a  doctor  or  a  lawyer,  or  in  dealing 
with  a  storekeeper,  the  Federalist  patronized  the  Feder- 
alist and  the  Democrat  the  Democrat. 

I  think  we  have  much  improved  in  these  matters.  I 
do  not  wish  to  discourage  the  efforts  of  some  of  my  Inde- 
pendent friends.  They  will  doubtless  improve  by  prac- 
tice, if  they  continue  of  the  same  way  of  thinking  long 
enough.     But   as    yet    their   descriptions    of   President 


12 


McKinley  are  far  behind  in  ability  and  somewhat  behind 
in  bitterness  the  Democratic  descriptions  of  Washington, 
or  the  Federalist  descriptions  of  Jefferson. 

Our  ancestors  two  centuries  ago  encountered  and  some- 
times yielded  to  the  temptations  which  belonged  to  a  time 
which  had  not  yet  thrown  off  the  superstitions  of  the 
dark  ages.  They  had  been  themselves  the  victims  of  re- 
ligious intolerance  and  political  oppression ;  and  men  who 
have  been  the  victims  of  political  and  religious  oppression 
are  apt,  when  they  get  the  power,  to  exercise  such  oppres- 
sion in  their  turn.  We  have  gained  much  in  the  matter 
of  religious  freedom  since  the  time  of  the  witchcraft  per- 
secution, little  more  than  two  centuries  ago.  We  have 
gained  much  during  the  century  just  closed.  Within 
my  recollection,  Abner  Kneeland  was  put  on  his  trial  in 
Boston  for  blasphemy  for  a  temperate  argument  against 
the  prevalent  Christian  faith.  The  ruins  of  the  Ursuline 
Convent  were  still  standing  on  yonder  hill  in  Charlestown 
when  I  was  a  student  at  Harvard.  Down,  I  think,  to 
1850  or  thereabouts,  the  Legislature  refused  a  charter  to 
the  Catholic  College  of  the  Holy  Cross  at  Worcester. 
This  charter  was  not  actually  granted  until  1865.  I 
yield  to  no  man  in  reverence  for  the  mighty  Puritan  who 
builded  this  State  and  laid  deep  below  the  frost  its  solid 
foundations  in  religion  and  liberty.  I  reverence  also 
the  great  generation  that  followed  the  war  of  the  revolu- 
tion, and  sent  your  predecessors  to  this  spot  to  gain  for 
Massachusetts  the  title  of  the  "model  Commonwealth." 
Their  blood  runs  in  my  veins.  I  am  their  offspring  in 
every  line  of  descent.  Whatever  the  State  has  been,  has 
become  or  shall  be,  is  largely  their  work.     But  I  believe 


13 


that  the  spirit  of  religious  freedom  is  purer  in  our  time 
than  it  was  in  theirs.  I  am  not  quite  ready  to  maintain 
that  the  Mathers  were  better  relig-ious  teachers  than 
Edward  Everett  Hale  or  Phillips  Brooks,  —  aye,  or  than 
Thomas  Conaty. 

Perhaps  the  most  distinctive  single  characteristic  of 
our  time  is  the  great,  rapid  and  easy  accumulation  of 
wealth  in  individual  hands.  It  is  in  some  respects  a  pub- 
lic benefit;  it  is  in  some  respects  a  public  danger.  In 
general,  these  vast  estates  go,  in  one  or  two  generations 
at  the  farthest,  back  into  the  general  mass  of  property, 
or  are  set  apart  for  public  purposes.  As  a  rule,  the  rich 
men  of  this  country  have  been  stirred  by  a  generous 
ambition  to  use  a  large  part  of  their  wealth  for  public 
objects.  The  voluntary  gifts  for  education  alone  large 
enough  to  be  separately  noted  in  the  press  for  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  amount  to  nearly  $300,000,000, 
besides  gifts  to  libraries.  If  they  leave  no  children,  it  all 
goes  that  way.  If  they  leave  children,  our  laws,  which 
forbid  tying  up  property  by  will  or  deed  for  a  longer 
period  than  a  life  in  being  at  the  death  of  the  testator  or 
grantor  and  twenty-one  years  thereafter,  insure  the  rapid 
division  of  the  great  fortune ;  and  the  heirs'  in  many  cases 
have  a  genius  for  scattering  property  equal  to  that  of  the 
genius  that  acquired  it.  So  the  people  who  get,  in  the 
way  of  employment,  the  benefit  of  the  energy  that  builds 
up  great  business  enterprises,  get,  sooner  or  later,  also 
the  fortune  acquired  by  the  man  who  originated  them. 

But  I  agree  that  the  effect  of  these  vast  fortunes  is 
bad  in  the  substitution  of  luxury  and  extravagance  in 
place  of  the  plain  living  that  characterized  our  frugal 


14 


republican  fathers.  A  greater  danger  still,  which  I  think 
we  shall  find  means  to  deal  with,  is  the  corrupt  use  of 
money  to  carry  elections  or  to  get  high  office  or  influence 
Legislatures.  Of  this  we  have  had  some  most  disgraceful 
recent  examples.  These  things  cannot  always  be  proved 
clearly  enough  to  defeat  their  object,  even  if  the  men  who 
have  done  them  not  only  do  not  deny  them  but  boast  of 
them.  One  remedy  must  be  found  in  an  aroused  and 
indignant  public  opinion.  The  millionnaire  who  would 
corrupt  a  great  State  to  get  a  great  office  must  be  made 
to  feel  that  his  success  will  bring  with  it  neither  joy 
nor  honor.  Let  public  contempt  and  scorn  blast  him. 
Let  him  be  avoided  as  one  with  a  leprosy.  We  shall  not, 
probably,  revive  the  ignominious  punishments  of  the  past, 
but,  if  they  are  ever  revived,  let  him  be  their  first  victim. 
The  whipping-post,  the  branding  on  the  forehead,  the 
cropping  of  the  ears,  the  scourging  at  the  cart's  tail,  are 
light  punishments  for  the  rich  man  who  would  debauch 
a  State,  whether  it  be  an  old  State  with  an  honorable 
history,  or  a  young  and  pure  State  in  the  beginning  of  its 
history.  If  we  cannot  apply  them  literally  and  physi- 
cally, let  the  aroused  public  sentiment  of  his  countrymen 
pillory  and  brand  and  scourge  the  infamous  offender. 
Leave  him  to  his  infamy.  Let  him  be  an  outcast  from  the 
companionship  of  freemen. 

Give  him  a  cloak  to  hide  him  in, 

And  leave  him  alone  with  his  shame  and  sin. 

We  will  not  be  cast  down.  This  thing  is  partial,  local, 
temporary.  The  great  mass  of  the  American  people  is 
honest,   patriotic  and   incorruptible.     Every  generation 


15 


has  had  its  own  faults  and  temptations  and  wrong-doings ; 
every  generation  will  have  its  own  faults  and  temptations 
and  wrong-doings  unto  the  end  of  time.  We  have  to 
encounter  an  evil  which  comes  from  a  great  wealth  and  a 
great  prosperity.  England  went  through  the  same  trial 
long  ago.  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  time  of  Sir  Robert 
Walpole,  the  great  prime  minister,  who  said  that  every 
man  had  his  price,  but  of  a  later  time,  Disraeli  said  in 
the  House  of  Commons  that  long  after  the  time  of  Wal- 
pole, after  the  close  of  the  American  war,  a  member  of  the 
government  used  to  stand  at  the  entrance  of  the  House  of 
Commons  at  the  end  of  the  session  and  give  every  mem- 
ber who  had  faithfully  supported  the  government  a  five- 
hundred-pound  note.  England  has  put  an  end  to  corrup- 
tion and  bribery.  We  can  do  everything  that  England 
can,  and  we  can  do  a  great  many  things  that  England 
cannot. 

It  has  been  well  said  by  Mr.  Webster,  who  knew  the 
New  England  character  and  comprehended  New  England 
institutions  more  profoundly  than  any  other  man  Avho 
ever  lived,  that  "  there  is  hardly  a  greater  blessing  con- 
ferred on  man  than  his  natural  wants. "  If  he  had  wanted 
no  more  than  the  beasts,  who  can  say  how  much  more 
than  they  he  would  have  attained?  In  considering  the 
comfort  and  dignity  of  common  life  by  which  the  social 
conditions  of  a  State  are  determined,  it  is  no  cause  of  re- 
gret, but  of  congratulation  and  thankfulness  rather,  that 
our  wants  to-day  far  transcend  those  of  our  simple  and 
frugal  ancestors.  Plain  living  and  high  thinking  are 
doubtless  the  best  conditions  for  human  life,  but,  if  the 
living  be  too  plain,  the  thinking  will  not  be  high.     The 


16 


soul  and  the  body  will  not  often  hunger  or  thirst  at 
the  same  time.  Mean  and  base  surroundingrs,  without 
the  refinement  of  taste,  are  apt  to  degrade  alike  the  intel- 
lectual and  the  moral  nature.  So  I  count  the  improved 
style  of  living,  the  vridening  of  the  circle  of  what  are  called 
the  necessaries  of  life,  the  adornment  of  the  mechanic's 
home  and  the  improvement  in  the  farmer's  dwelling, 
which  have  taken  place  in  both  these  two  centuries  we 
are  reviewing,  as  an  unmixed  blessing.  It  has  not  only 
stimulated  manufacture,  it  has  not  only  been  the  parent 
of  inventive  genius,  it  has  not  only  increased  national 
wealth,  but  it  has  elevated  national  character. 

Was  there  ever  such  an  example  on  earth  as  Massachu- 
setts of  the  peaceful  incorporation  into  a  State  of  men  of 
foreign  origin  and  alien  blood,  —  a  people  considerably 
larger  in  number  than  those  of  the  original  stock?  Yet 
the  essential  qualities  of  character  remain  unchanged,  or 
only  changed  for  the  better.  Massachusetts  has  been  the 
author  of  great  benefactions  to  mankind.  Her  example 
has  gone,  as  her  children  have  gone,  from  one  end  of  this 
continent  to  the  other.  Foreign  nations  have  profited 
by  her  lessons.  English  freedom,  as  it  has  slowly  broad- 
ened down  from  precedent  to  precedent,  has  owed  much 
of  its  growth  to  precedents  set  to  England  by  America 
and  set  to  America  by  Massachusetts.  But  among  her 
greatest  benefactions  has  been  her  benefaction  to  the 
strangfers  she  has  welcomed  within  her  grates  and  seated 
as  brethren,  or  rather  as  children,  at  her  hospitable  board. 
And  yet,  whatever  benefit  she  has  conferred  upon  them, — 
upon  the  Swede,  upon  the  Irishman,  upon  the  Enghshman, 


17 


upon  the  Italian,  —  they  have  repaid  over  and  over  again 
to  her. 

Let  us  not  discourage  the  healthy  discontent  of  labor, 
still  less  the  impatience  of  poverty  with  its  lot.  It  is  from 
these  that  great  improvements  in  social  conditions  are 
born.  This  discontent,  when  it  flows  in  healthy  channels, 
begets  invention,  begets  energy,  begets  improvement  in 
legislation,  and  keeps  the  State  from  stagnation  and  cor- 
ruption. But,  still,  the  plain  man  who  lives  in  his  simple 
dwelling,  who  looks  with  envy  upon  tiie  luxury  in  which 
his  neighbor  dwells,  may  well  reflect  what  wealth  belongs 
to  him  by  virtue  of  his  citizenship,  which  no  prince  or 
nobleman  or  nabob  ever  enjoyed  in  former  generations. 
He  is  the  joint  owner  of  beautiful  parks  and  galleries  and 
libraries.  Schools  and  colleges  are  open  to  his  children 
at  a  cost  almost  nominal.  He  is  transported  from  town 
to  town,  over  country  roads,  through  fertile  fields,  through 
populous  towns  and  cities.  He  can  enjoy  the  mountains 
of  beautiful  Berkshire,  which  no  Arcadia  ever  rivalled, 
or  the  glorious  sea  coast  scenes  of  Essex,  where  the  eternal 
sea  beats  on  the  eternal  rocks,  in  chariots  drawn  by  swift 
and  invisible  coursers,  which  the  wealth  of  no  Astor  or 
Lawrence  could  have  bought  a  generation  ago.  His  are 
the  transcendent  sweets  of  domestic  life  in  the  security 
and  the  glory  of  our  Massachusetts  citizenship,  and  above 
all,  the  right,  as  his  eyes  gaze  on  the  American  flag,  to 
say,  ' '  That  is  the  emblem  of  my  country  and  the  symbol 
of  my  power. ' ' 

If  Providence  afflict  him  or  his  household  with  insanity 
or  blindness  or  deafness  or  idiocy,  what  a  contrast  has  this 


18 


single  century  witnessed  in  the  dealing  of  the  State  with 
these  unfortunate  beings.  Within  living  memory  the 
insane  man  was  chained  in  some  wretched  out-house,  like 
a  wild  beast,  or,  if  less  dangerous,  walked  the  streets,  the 
mockery  of  brutal  and  senseless  sport.  The  ray  of  intel- 
lectual light  seldom  penetrated  the  darkened  mind  of  the 
child  who  was  born  blind  or  deaf.  To-day  the  deaf  and 
dumb  learn  articulate  speech,  and  often  mingle  with  their 
fellow  beings  mthout  their  infirmity  being  detected.  A 
deaf,  dumb  and  blind  girl  has  just  won  high  honors  at 
Radcliffe.  The  insane  is  clothed  and  his  humanity  re- 
spected, even  if  not  in  his  right  mind,  and  the  gentle 
ministrations  of  Christian  charity  awaken  the  darkened 
soul  of  the  idiot.  The  State  performs  these  Christian 
offices  for  the  poorest  as  for  the  wealthiest  of  her  children. 
A  hundred  years  ago  slavery  had  been  abolished  in 
Massachusetts  but  twenty  years.  The  slave  trade,  which 
had  disgraced  Boston  in  the  middle  of  the  century  before, 
still  lingered  in  the  New  England  seaports.  In  1820  Mr. 
Webster  exclaimed  at  Plymouth  :  "  It  is  not  fit  that  the 
land  of  the  Pilgrims  should  bear  the  shame  longer.  I 
hear  the  sound  of  the  hammer,  I  see  the  smoke  of  the 
furnaces  where  manacles  and  fetters  are  stiU  forged  for 
human  limbs.  I  see  the  visages  of  those  who  by  stealth 
and  at  midnight  labor  in  this  work  of  heU,  foul  and  dark, 
as  may  become  the  artificers  of  such  instruments  of  mis- 
ery and  torture.  Let  that  spot  be  purified,  or  let  it  cease 
to  be  of  New  England ;  let  it  be  purified,  or  let  it  be  set 
aside  from  the  Christian  world ;  let  it  be  put  out  of  the 
circle  of  human  sympathies  and  human  regards,  and  let 
civilized  man  henceforth  have  no  communion  with  it." 


19 


There  are  doubtless  some  dark  colors  in  our  picture. 
We  cannot  look  without  deepest  concern  upon  the  terrible 
increase  of  crime,  —  an  increase  which  seems  to  be  more 
rapid  as  the  years  go  by.  We  attributed  this  until  lately 
to  the  coming  into  our  community  of  men  of  foreign 
birth,  who  had  not  been  educated  like  us  or  bred  to  the 
self-restraint  of  freedom,  and  to  the  growth  of  great 
cities.  But  we  can  avail  ourselves  of  no  such  refuge  now. 
In  1820  Mr.  Webster  at  Plymouth  dwelt  with  pride  upon 
the  fact  that  all  New  England  slept  at  night  in  safety 
with  unlocked  doors.  Fifty  years  ago  it  was  a  maxim 
accepted  everywhere  that  the  crime  of  murder  was  im- 
possible of  concealment;  that,  if  other  means  failed,  the 
murderer  himself  could  not  bear  the  weight  of  his  guilty 
secret ;  that,  as  the  same  great  authority  said,  ' '  There  is 
no  escape  from  confession  but  suicide,  and  suicide  is 
confession."  But  to-day  crimes  against  human  life  and 
against  female  chastity  are  committed  with  impunity  by 
men  of  the  purest  Puritan  blood  in  rural  communities, 
and  they  go  undetected  and  unpunished.  When  a  murder 
was  committed  in  Dedham,  near  a  hundred  years  ago, 
the  great  orator  and  statesman,  Fisher  Ames,  said,  "  Let 
no  man  sleep  in  Dedham  this  night. "  If  a  murder  should 
be  committed,  I  will  not  say  in  Dedham,  but  in  Worces- 
ter, to-morrow,  the  neighbors  on  the  next  street  would 
scarcely  hear  or  scarcely  heed  the  news.  The  spirit  of 
gambling  which  prevails  everywhere,  not  only  among  the 
practised  gamblers  on  the  stock  exchange,  but  through 
brokers  is  carried  on  by  widows  with  their  little  fortunes, 
tempts  the  trustee  and  the  treasurer  and  the  bank  officer 
with  his  humble  salary,  so  that  embezzlement,  in  many 


20 


cases  followed  by  no  disgrace  or  public  censure,  is  grow- 
ing and  increasing  fearfully  throughout  Massachusetts. 

There  is  a  great  unsolved  problem  which  still  lowers 
over  us  like  a  dark  cloud.  It  has  till  lately  been  a  do- 
mestic question  only.  But  it  is  now  threatening  us  with 
new  dangers  in  the  far  East.  We  have,  on  the  whole, 
met  with  admirable  success  in  dealing  with  men  of  the 
white  race  of  foreign  birth  and  of  other  religious  faith 
than  that  of  the  Puritans.  Fifty-two  per  cent,  of  the 
people  of  Massachusetts  are  of  foreign  birth,  or  the  chil- 
dren of  men  of  foreign  birth.  They  have  had  and  have, 
as  the  rest  of  us  have  had,  their  grave  faults.  But  they 
have  borne  a  noble  and  useful  part  in  the  history  of  Mas- 
sachusetts in  peace  and  war.  They  have  advanced  since 
they  came  herein  every  quality  of  good  citizenship  and 
with  marvellous  rapidity.  They  have  been  among  our 
best  and  bravest  soldiers,  they  have  built  our  railroads, 
their  men  have  taken  their  share  in  our  public  affairs, 
and  their  women  have  been  and  are  valued  and  useful 
inmates  of  our  households.  They  have  set  us  an  example 
of  patriotism  and  of  conjugal  affection. 

But  we  can  tell  no  such  story  of  our  dealing  with  the 
Indian  or  the  T^egro  or  the  Oriental.  Undoubtedly  much 
has  been  gained.  The  Negro  has  come  but  of  slavery. 
So  far  as  constitutional  enactments  go,  he  has  all  the 
rights  of  citizenship.  In  Massachusetts,  I  am  proud  to 
say,  he  takes  his  place  as  an  equal  and  sometimes  as  a 
superior  in  our  universities  and  colleges  and  public  schools. 
But  still,  if  you  look  the  country  over,  the  condition  of 
the  American  Negro  is  a  shame  to  the  American  white 
man.     Most  of  the  Indian  wars  of  the  last  century,  bloody 


21 


and  cruel  as  they  have  been,  have  been  the  fault  of  the 
whites,  "We  are  at  this  moment  dealing  with  the  people 
of  an  alien  race  in  the  far  East  as  we  would  never  for  a 
moment,  under  precisely  the  same  conditions,  deal  with 
men  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood.  If  reconstruction  has  been 
in  any  degree  a  failure,  if  our  Indian  administration  has 
been  brutal  or  corrupt,  if  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
human  lives  have  been  needlessly  sacrificed  in  the  Philip- 
pine Islands,  the  fault  has  been  almost  wholly  with  the 
American  white  man. 

I  believe  the  solution  of  this  difficulty  is  to  be  found  in 
the  (iolden  Rule  and  in  the  great  Declaration,  which  is 
but  the  application  of  the  Golden  Rule  to  the  conduct  of 
States.  If  the  white  man  will  take  these  for  his  guides 
when  he  deals  with  the  Negro  and  the  Indian,  if  America 
will  take  these  for  her  rule  of  action  in  dealing  with  weak 
foreign  nations,  the  difficulties  that  beset  us  will  dis- 
appear. If  we  do  not,  as  sure  as  God  liveth,  however 
the  weaker  races  may  suffer,  the  penalty  will  fall  upon  us. 
I  have  an  abiding  confidence  that  these  clouds  which 
hover  over  us  will  disappear.  I  am  no  prophet,  nor  son 
of  a  prophet,  except  as  all  our  fathers  were  prophets. 
But  I  think  I  know  the  temper  of  the  American  people, 
and  I  know  that  I  know  the  temper  of  the  people  of  Mas- 
sachusetts. I  have  an  abiding  and  absolute  conviction 
that,  with  knowledge  of  the  truth  and  the  letting  in  the 
light,  persistence  in  a  wrong  to  any  people  or  race  is 
wholly  impossible  to  our  just  and  generous  countrymen. 
The  light  will  come  to  us,  if  we  will  but  open  our  eyes  to 
it.  If  we  do  not,  it  will  be  in  our  power  to  keep  it  out. 
I  sat,  in  my  boyhood,  at  the  feet  of  a  wise  old  teacher, 


22 


who  said  that  ' '  A  people  is  like  a  man ;  and,  if  a  man  set 
himself  to  believe  a  lie,  God  punishes  him  with  complete 
success."  I  look  upon  the  future  of  Massachusetts  and 
of  the  country  without  fear.  The  new  days  and  the  new 
century  are  to  be  better  than  the  old.  This  beginning 
of  another  age,  this  headland  that  our  Ship  of  State  is 
passing,  on  its  stormy  voyage,  freighted  Avith  the  destiny 
of  liberty  and  humanity,  is  a  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  Our 
fathers  did  not  penetrate  a  position  their  sons  cannot 
hold.  The  people  that  gained  the  great  heights  of  the 
great  Declaration  will  not  abandon  them.  Humanity 
that  has  risen  from  out  the  beast  shall  not  "go  back 
into  the  beast  again." 


UCSB  LIBRARY 


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